Reports that News Corporation has balked at the '$150m' asking price to buy internet darling Digg.com is perhaps a signal that the land grab for 'web 2.0' properties may be cooling. Or at least that price tags on the 'next wave' of prospects may be coming down.
That is not to say that Digg.com, the site that allows users to send in and rate articles and blog posts, isn't a valuable property.
A number of suitors have apparently taken a look at Digg, and a deal could still be done, but the controversy over its user numbers appears to have poured cold water on an acquisition, for now.
Facebook has encountered a similar cooling of interest. Lead suitor was Yahoo! But this cooled after Facebook reportedly rejected a bid of around $750m because founder Mark Zuckerburg had a figure of $2bn in mind.
Again, that is not to say Facebook isn't a tempting social networking site and a number of other brands, including Microssoft and even rival MySpace have been linked with a possible purchase.
However, after the headlong landgrab of the first dotcom boom saw many media companies get burnt (AOL/TimeWarner anyone?) it would seem that cooler heads are prevailing this time round.
True, the mini boom of the last year - culminating in the $1.65bn mega-deal between YouTube and Google that is fraught with potential revenue generation and legal issues - has put pressure on players such as Microsoft and Yahoo! to act.
Yet, they both have deep pockets and today's fad website could easily become yesterday's news. The new media graveyard has many faded stars including Friendster, Napster and, er, Sportal.
Perhaps this time around the big players that missed the first big deals are taking the position that less haste will mean more speed in making acquisitons that will successfully drive digital strategy?
